1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to flavored wood pellets containing and made with wood oil.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flavoring briquettes or pellets are commonly used as cooking fuel due to their ability to impart flavor to food during the cooking process. A pellet imparts flavor when smoke released from the pellet during combustion carries flavor to the food. Flavoring pellet examples in the prior art include U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,653, which incorporates spices into a briquette, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,438, which incorporates olive oil into a briquette. These briquettes impart certain flavors to food, but they do not provide the characteristic smoked wood flavor of food cooked over an open flame with different types of wood.
Pellets comprising mixtures of wood have been manufactured to provide wood flavor during cooking. Generally, wood that imparts flavor, known as flavor wood, and a wood that does not impart flavor, known as base wood, have been combined to produce pellets that impart wood flavor into food. Mixtures of base and flavor woods have been used because if a wood pellet was made entirely from a flavor wood, then food cooked with that pellet may taste too strong to appeal to most persons.
Accordingly, manufacturers can harvest flavor wood and base wood to blend together in ratios that produce pellets with a desired flavor level. Because flavor wood and base wood are often found in substantially different locations, the flavor wood is typically shipped to a central location for pellet manufacturing. Shipping flavor wood in solid form over substantial distances can result in significant expense. In addition, one must apply onerous initial quality control measures when using solid flavor wood, such as inspection for pests and wood rot. Further, it is often costly to accurately mix flavor wood and base wood to the desired ratio in solid form. Thus, using solid flavor wood to manufacture flavored wood pellets results in numerous disadvantages.
A flavored wood pellet that contained less or completely lacked solid flavor wood and a process for producing such pellets would reduce or eliminate the aforementioned disadvantages to the benefit of both manufactures and consumers.